Looking back over the last 8 weeks or so, I can't be too upset at my swimming. With the craziness of the move, the transition into new position, and the search for a new home in the area I've only been able to get in 3-4 times per week for very short swims (1500-2500 SCY range). But over the last couple of years I've gotten used to swimming almost every day going 3-4K pretty regularly, so anything less than that feels like I've completely abandoned my fitness program. Hoping I'll be able to get back into a routine of swimming every day soon!

I'm used to putting in long hours of work, but when you add a couple of hours with the real estate agent looking at homes every day your free time starts shrinking rapidly. I think the daily "house hunt" is way more exhausting than an hour at the Y. At this point we're so tired of looking that the thing really needs to be "move-in" ready, unfortunately most of the stuff at our price point is flame-thrower ready. My personal favorite was the dated house in a great neighborhood (Hawaiian motif wall-paper!), with a chicken coop in the back yard and a swimming pool that was getting ready to slide off into a ravine. Or the beautifully updated house in a nice neighborhood with the fatal flaw of a four-lane highway and access roads 25 yards from the back porch. Sigh. I think we're getting closer.

The other thing that is frustrating is that my 3-4 days per week in the pool have been highly erratic, so like last week I managed 4 days straight between Thursday and Sunday... awesome, right? But then I couldn't manage to get back in until this Friday, so whatever progress I made on getting back into shape in those four swims was lost in the four day hiatus that followed!

The move is complete, though we're still making our way through boxes. I'm getting used to the new YMCA. Haven't joined the masters workouts yet... I'm holding off for a semester at least; the learning curve at work right now is pretty steep on the administrative side, so I'm going to ease back into the swimming as I can. I have been getting in to swim a few times a week, but really just for stress relief... nothing intense.

That was my last swim as a member of the Kenosha YMCA--sniff; I'll have to sign up with Waco YMCA as soon as I get down there. But it was a little tough walking out of the locker room for the last time as a resident.

Today I did 2 miles at Lake Andrea, inside their 50 meter lap swim area... the one with the nasty left turn and tapering at one end... seems like a recipe for collisions. I was just happy to get in the mileage and be in the open air. I'll go there a couple more times before the move next week.

*These were mostly in the 1:28-1:29 range, maybe 3-4 in 1:30-1:31, so this is probably my current 1650 pace (as it has been for more than a year now... sigh)., but I'm encouraged by the fact that I'm just starting to get back into the swing of long freestyle interval sets.

First time in a while I've done more than two miles in a workout. I decided just to do 3000 in 100s today... 30 x 100... just to see what would happen. I used the first 3-4 to walk myself down below 1:30, then I kept a 1:27-1:28 pace for about 1600 (more or less my goal pace for that distance); then just started cruising, keeping mid 1:30s (my 3-5k pace). Here's how it went down:

On this last few weeks before the move... I finished summer school first session on June 13 and have had since then really to focus on the move, with the exception of 5 days in Austin over the long 4th of July weekend. Usually a month goes by really quickly... but for some reason I feel as if time has sort of stood still for the last six weeks. My last day of class in the UW system seems like ages ago. Took me forever to clean out the office... maybe that's why. Just thought I would record that bizarre feeling here. Of course, when I want time to stand still it flies like a bat out of the infernal regions. Oh well, a watched pot...

203 miles year-to-date, to be exact. It's been a rough spring and summer so far in terms of training... all the pressure of the move, which is finally coming to a head, after fourteen years in the same place, has taken its toll on my training. I'm lucky to get in 4x a week, some weeks over the last couple of months it's been only 3x. Either I haven't had the time or, more likely, the motivation and/or energy. Swimming has definitely been on the back-burner, but today I felt pretty good... well, good when the workout was over. Did 3000:

The main set was 1650 pace set, I guess, the 200s were probably a little faster than current pace, the 100s started off in goal pace and then dropped back toward my pace from last spring; the 50s were a little faster than goal pace.

A measure of my fitness and motivation was that this is an absurd amount of rest in comparison to the workouts I've been doing for 1650 pace over the last couple of years (usually a 1:40-1:45 interval for 100s and 3:20-3:30 for 200s at 1500 pace). I keep telling myself that this is just maintenance work and it's off-season for me now anyway. I imagine a few months after the move, things will start to get back to normal (whatever that is!).

The move is set for the first week in August. We have an offer on the house here, awaiting the reappraisal, so hopefully that all goes off without a hitch... the offer has just come in in the eleventh hour, but it will be a huge weight off our shoulders not to have to carry that mortgage with us down to Texas.

For now, we'll be renting a townhome near Aaron's High School... keeping an eye out for nice homes/neighborhoods in the school district over the next few months. Our unit is right across from the pool, though it's a small one... probably 15-20 yards in length. Being so close though, it might entice me to get in and work on the underwater dolphins and other drills that don't necessitate a full-length pool.

We did our LCM state champs here in WI a month ago already... hard to believe. I swam the 1500 and all the back events. My 200 back was an LCM PR by nearly :12. And had me briefly in the top 10 for that event this season... oh so briefly! My 1500 came in at 26:16, almost :30 faster than last year. The focus on form, even as the volume has fallen off this year, is starting to pay off.

100 mies is the swimming milestone I hit for the year this week. Took me about a month and a half longer to do it this year than last, but I'm starting to feel a little better about my [slow] build-up now. Today the YMCA was closed for Easter observance of course, but Thursday thru Saturday I managed to get in some good workouts in the pool: 3000-3500 each day. I'll summarize my main sets here:

20 x 100: Thursday's main set was a 20 x 100 on 1:45. My times were slow, I averaged 1:27 probably on the first 5 or 6, then I was working hard to keep it under 1:30 until the last 5 or so in which 1:31 seemed to be the theme... even a couple of 1:32s in there (my 1650 pace at state last month). The goal is to keep this set at 1:25 or better on a 1:40 interval when I'm back in shape.

Broken 1650: Friday's main set was a 1650, swum as 3 x 200 on 3:20, 6 x 100 on 1:40, 6 x 50 on :50, 6 x 25 on :25... I felt pretty strong through this whole set. My 200s were right around 3:02, my 100s, 1:29-1:30, the 50s, :42-:43, and the 25s all around :21. Total time was 27:25, but total swim time would have been under 25:00 (the short term goal for 1650).

50s Day: Yesterday I did a couple of set I hadn't done in a long time. 10 x 50 fly on 1:10, and 10 x 50 back on 1:10. The back started slow and faded quickly, but the fly 50s were consistent at :48, even a some of :47s; the last two were :49, so I cut the set off at 10... eventually I'd like to build up to 20 x 50 at that target pace of :47-:48, and still have the energy to come back with a decent set of backstroke.

In the interest of just getting in some low-intensity cardio to help my base I decided to do something I haven't done in a while: a couple of 3000-yard straight swims in the last couple of days.

Yesterday I did 6 x thru 400 free + 100 back. Today I did 3 x thru 800 free + 200 Back. Both swims were right around 54 minutes (a little faster than that today). I also hit the weights again today after a 2.5k row on the machine (11+ minutes). Felt a lot better today than I did after drylands on Thursday.

THE MOVE:

So, as I mentioned about a month ago, I went back out on the academic job market this year... things at my home institution looking really bad (no raises, again; more benefits cuts; enrollment dropping; more cuts to the institution; increased workload; imminent bankruptcy--we've been running off our reserves since the crash; now they're looking at vacating buildings and shrinking the library space?--yikes!). In January and February I interviewed with Baylor University (in my native Texas) and was selected to head their division of Spanish and Portuguese, starting this coming fall semester. The position comes with tenure (so I don't have to go through that again) and is in a very vibrant department... it will be a little strange being in a place that's actually well funded and supports language and culture study, after all the years of struggle at a small state university.

Needless to say, I'm pretty excited about this opportunity, but uprooting the family after fourteen years in the Chicago-Milwaukee area is tough. They are resigned to the move, but not happy about it. Sigh.

Our real estate agent is coming over on Tuesday for a walk through to see exactly how much value our house has lost in the seven years since we moved into it (we got in high, right before the crash--Murphy's law!). Now we're only about 3 months out from our move and there is so much to do... argh! Guess I'll continue to chronicle the madness here.

Wow; it's been a while since I've had a chance to blog, so I haven't even been able to report on the Wisconsin state meet. As I mentioned in the run up to that meet (March 29-30), I was having some real shoulder discomfort in all the strokes but freestyle, so I decided to take it easy the week before and focus on the freestyle events: 100, 200, and 1650.

My last 100 in a meet was in January and I ended up doing a 1:11; a week before the meet (after I had already sent in my seed time, of course, based on my earlier meet time) I swam a 1:08. At state I swam 1:07.04 and took the heat by .06 against our Kenosha YMCA team-mate Jen. She came back with a 1:06 at the IL state meet last weekend, which I couldn't do because I was in Tuscon, and made sure to let me know about it.

I hadn't done a 200 free in a meet since last spring and was quite a bit slower then I guess (with a 2:45), but since I hadn't swum a 200 in meet context and my training has been so erratic this winter-spring I really had no idea how I was going to do... I think I put a seed time of 2:44 down. When I saw the other swimmers seeded around me in the mid- to upper-2:30s I decided just to go out and try to win the heat... as it turns out I faded pretty badly toward the end, and probably finished third or fourth in the heat, but my time was a PR: 2:35.86. My first time breaking the 2:40 mark. And it didn't feel too painful.

The 1650 was really just to test myself and see what kind of pace I could hold, since I really didn't have time to prepare for this one. I swam 18 secs slower than my best time of 25:04 at last year's state meet for a 25:22... I took a look at my splits and they were not too far off of last year, but definitely fading in the middle third. I was averaging about :01 slower per 100. So my current pace is about 1:32. I really want it to be 1:25, so I've got some work to do.

Last week I had a ball in Tuscon for a conference. The society ended up with a great deal at a swanky resort... but their "lap" pool was only about 20 yards long. Tremendous desert/mountain views though. Check this out:

This week I start back into the training more earnestly. Will try to be more consistent and do the weights/x-training too for a little more injury prevention. Today for example I swam 2400 yards then got out and did 2K row on the machine and the following:

A steady 1800 today on 1:40/100 pace; followed by some 25s on :30 at a quicker pace. 2000 SCY total.

I didn't want to do a hard swim, just get my body used to swimming for 25:00+ straight in anticipation of the 1650 this weekend. The 1800 in 30:00 was a nice round number, and mentally kept me from slowing to a slog, while also keeping me from building up too much lactic acid.

Thought I would post some photos a friend from Milwaukee sent a few days ago. His daughter-in-law was at the last meet in Whitefish Bay by coincidence, so he decided to get my start and finish for the 400 IM:

So the last few weeks have been very inconsistent; not because of illness, work and travel as happened earlier this winter, but because I tried to come back too quickly and messed up my left shoulder. I didn't have the base, but I was going for the same intensity I had last year in the run up to the state meet.

The shoulder started hurting in the pull phase of breast stroke and I kept tweaking it during back as well. Finally it started giving out on me during fly. So I have a hiatus on all the strokes except freestyle (and a very slow backstroke) for a while. If I breathe to my left I don't have any issues with it... I've had issues with this shoulder before, it's like there's inflammation or some kind of impingement there when I build up too quickly and don't give my muscles a chance to adapt to added stress, and then I'll tweak it if I'm not being really careful and it becomes something more than just soreness or discomfort.

For today's 80 x 25 on :45 workout--the last one before state--instead of doing fly, back, and breast, I did kick with fins: SDKs, back dolphins, back kick, and then when everyone else was swimming the 20 x 25 breast set, I just alternated front and back dolphins. My legs and core will be pretty sore tomorrow... but in a good way.

I went ahead and did the 20 x 25 on :45 freestyle as full stroke... and they were pretty fast (for me--:14-:16). After the recovery swim, Jen and Scotty did a 100 IM for time off the blocks, to see where they were; I swam my time trial as 100 freestyle and PR'd, breaking 1:10 for the first time (1:08 is my new unofficial PB for SCY 100 free)... technique and speed work are paying off.

I'm still going to state, but will not swim my favorites--200 IM, back and fly; 400 IM--focusing instead on freestyle, which I can still do without hurting myself: 100, 200, 1650.

I'm not really in shape for the 1650 because I haven't had time to build a decent base or work on my pacing. I'm hoping that the gains I've made in technique over the last year will help me not be so slow. I did an EZ 1650 in the pool on Saturday (all I had time for because I got to the pool just 30 minutes before closing time); finished in 27 minutes. I put down 26 as my seed time, though I would secretly love to be around 24:45. Last year I was just over 25, so we'll see where I am.

First time I've done this workout in a while, so I felt like I was working the rust out. But I needed the shorter reps and longer rest to feel myself swimming faster... otherwise it's easy to swim myself into a rut. Also, it was good to swim against Scotty again... schedules just hadn't worked out over the last couple of weeks.

--The 20 x 25 sets take 15 minutes to complete, so we started a new set every 20 minutes to allow for a little recovery.

Cool-Down (600):
400 IM on 8:00 (6:51)
200 EZ free

3500 SCY/1h45m

With the exception of freestyle, my times seemed a bit slow... maybe a second on fly, a couple of seconds on back, compared to where I was a month and a half ago on this workout. Freestyle doesn't seem to have suffered as much, but I've been paying a lot closer attention to my stroke counts than I was before, even if I haven't been putting in as many yards. Today I had a lot of reps in :16 with 16 strokes, which seems pretty balanced to me.

I haven't done a strictly freestyle workout in a long time, and I only had a short time before I needed to get ready for work this morning, so I did a warm-up, hammered out a quick set of 100s and then a quick cool-down:

I'm a long way way from being able to do the 20 x 100 on 1:40 set that I was doing last year before the 1650 at state, but my pace is also about 3-4 secs faster than it was then too. If I can keep adding 100s to the set, I could be at my goal pace for this set and the 1650 (1:25/100) in about 5 weeks... the problem is, of course, that our state meet is three weeks from this weekend.

I don't know... if I add two reps to the set and do the set twice/week, that puts me at 1600 in race pace work after 2.5 weeks; five more workouts... hmm. Maybe I'll do the set MWF next week and see how I feel when I'm swimming 12 x 100 on 1:40 next Friday before I decide to scratch the 1650 altogether this season. I'm swimming my fly, bk, IM workouts on Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday, so maybe it will work.

Today I did something like a repeat of Tuesday's workout with broken 200s (4 x 50 on 1:00 for fly, back and breast)... only I was slower! I was supposed to be holding 200 pace... so apparently 200 pace has gotten really, really slow. I even took yesterday off (not really on purpose, but I had to make a choice at the end of the day to go to the Y or go to Ash Wednesday service... and if there's anything that's more atrophied than my lungs right now it's probably my soul... ha, ha).

Anyway, here's what I did today... reversing the order of fly and back sets from Tuesday:

MS (1200):
4 x 50 back on 1:00 (:49, :49, :50, :52)
50 recovery--start next set on the next "up"
4 x 50 back on 1:00 (:48, :49, :50, :52)
50 recovery
4 x 50 fly on 1:00 (:48, :50, :50, :52)
50 recovery
4 x 50 fly on 1:00 (close to same times as the first set of fly)
50 recovery
4 x 50 BR/FR on 1:00 (working on the back half of the 4IM)

Encouraged by my times on Sunday, all improvements over last SCY season in spite of my sporadic training, I decided that I probably could do a decent 200 and 400 IM at state, and that 200 back and 200 fly--being on different days--are also feasible. These are the events that enjoy training for the most, so I might as well go ahead and make them my goal events. I'll decide whether or not I want to do the 1650 (last event on the last day) at the end of this week, after I have a chance to do some long freestyle sets... see where my fitness is.

The results from Whitefish Bay are already in the USMS database. I'm pretty pleased with my splits in the 4 and 2 IMs. My fly and free legs are almost even (1:29 fly and 1:26 free in the 400 IM; 40+ fly and 40+ free in the 2IM)... the free should be a lot faster, but that's where my lack of conditioning is making itself felt. There and with the backstroke leg as well... there's no reason, with all the backstroke work I did last fall, that I shouldn't be swimming around 1:30/100 pace, even after the fly leg... but again, I think it's just lack of conditioning. Back and Breast are "recovery" legs in the IMs.

Took a break (that I didn't need) yesterday because I couldn't find time to get to the Y. We had our annual appointment with the accountant for taxes right after work, and then after dinner my wife and I sat down with the boys to talk about the contract that I'm probably going to be signing and sending off in the next couple of days. We're still "negotiating" with Anthony, who is finishing his senior year this semester and headed off to college next year. He doesn't want us to move... he wants to be able to come back "home." I understand. I didn't expect this to be as traumatic for him, since he won't be around for most of the year anyway, but I get it... he didn't expect that saying goodbye to his friends for college would be saying goodbye forever. Our youngest is going into high school next year and will miss a couple of good friends he has from elementary and junior high, but he's pretty much starting over next year anyway and so he's taking it in stride.

Today I decided to get my swim in over lunch and not risk missing another day by waiting until the late evening to get it in. Here's what I did:

A goodly contingent from Kenosha YMCA made the trip up to Whitefish Bay this morning for a meet. Scotty, Scott, Ryan and I were planning to do the 200 medley relay; and Jen surprised us by showing up to her first meet since high school. Everyone swam well and we had a great time. The group is growing little by little and it's been loads of fun getting to know folks and their families, and to root each other on.

It's been about two weeks since I've written here and a lot has happened in that time... unfortunately for my training not a lot in the pool for me. I've been set back by those illnesses and then schedules, meetings, conferences have all conspired to keep me out of the pool except sporadically in the last month... so I'm going to call it a taper!

I am really pleased with my swims today. I started with the 400 IM, which I haven't done in an SCY meet since last season, so I had no idea what my time was going to be. I crushed my previous meet PR by 12 seconds, coming in at 6:37. I'm in much worse conditioning than I was when I swam it at the state meet last March, but obviously my technique has gotten a lot better... especially in fly and back.

I toyed with doing the 200 fly, but noticed when I was registering that it would be right before the 200 medley relay; and since I was doing the backstroke leg I didn't think this would be a good idea... wouldn't even be able to get out of the pool and would be heading right into the backstroke blocks after totally expending myself on 200 fly. I saved my energy for the back leg of the relay and broke 40 secs (at 39.xx I was pretty close to my 50 back time from the Evanston meet). Scotty followed with a 34.xx breast leg, Scott swam 27.7 fly and got us within striking distance. Ryan then brought us home with the victory and a scorching freestyle leg. I had apologized in advance for making them all swim from behind! But of course nobody minded, we were just happy to have a team on the blocks and it was just a bonus that we won the only heat of that relay!

Next up for me was the 200 IM, and I had put a 3:20 seed time down, seriously not knowing what to expect or if I would even have the energy (my endurance has fallen off a lot), but again all the work on technique came through for me. Mike from Libertyville, who I did some of the pirate lake swimming with last summer, asked me what I was thinking with the seed time, and I said... "yeah, I'm just trying to be conservative because I haven't done the 2IM since last season in a meet setting." I felt pretty good about my fly leg (I think I counted 4-5 strokes to the first wall) and my back felt smoother than it had since Evanston, by the time I hit the breaststroke leg, though, my legs were screaming for mercy. I pushed as hard as I could on the freestyle leg and turned to see 3:07, my fastest SCY 200 IM by 6 seconds. Can't wait to see the splits on that one.

I finished out the meet with 200 breast a couple of events later. My goal was just to hold form for the full 200, not dq. I swam 3:35 and felt pretty relaxed the whole time. It's interesting how my legs never feel as fatigued during a 200 yard race of any type as they do in the breast leg of the 2 and 4 IMs. I expected my legs to be killing me throughout this 200 breast, but they really never did.

Anyway, as a team we probably had 20-22 individual splashes on top of the relay, so we were busy cheering for each other the whole meet, which kept things hopping. Meet ran smoothly too.

Can't say how much I'm going to miss the WMAC when we move this summer... oh, yeah, forgot to mention I was offered the job I interviewed for a couple of weeks ago. It's a great community here, and I am sad to have to leave it, my swim partners have become really good friends over the last couple of years... among the best I've made in Wisconsin in my 14 years here... but the new job is an incredible opportunity too. A lot of mixed feelings. I'll write more on the details over the next couple of weeks.